The idea of photography as evidence is pure bullshit. A photo is no more proof of any reality than what you may hear being said by someone in a bus. We only record details, small fragments of the world. This cannot allow any judgement, even if the sum of these details may convey a point of view.

I have been slacking on getting my film developed which means that I receive negs and proof sheets in batches, sometimes spanning a period of months, images and contact sheets containing forgotten narratives and distant days.

These shots are from August, during a fantastically hot stretch. The heat index hit 115 one day. I did not stop sweating until September.

But the cinephile is … a neurotic! (That’s not a pejorative term.) The Bronte sisters were neurotic, and it’s because they were neurotic that they read all those books and became writers. The famous French advertising slogan that says, “When you love life, you go to the movies,” it’s false! It’s exactly the opposite: when you don’t love life, or when life doesn’t give you satisfaction, you go to the movies.

— François Truffaut

Blondes make the best victims. They’re like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints.

In 1958, a year before the revolution, Magnum wanted to send me to Cuba because they had contacts with the rebels. I’d just spent six months in South America and said no, so I missed everything.

Fortunately, a few years later, I got another phone call. Laura Bergquist, a star reporter with Look magazine, had met Che Guevara at the UN in October 1962, after the Cuban missile crisis. She bugged him so much that he told her: “If you get permission from the CIA or the Pentagon, you are invited to Cuba, and I will show you what is really going on.” She got the green light from the Americans – and I went with her.

We arrived at Che’s office on the eighth floor of the Hotel Riviera in Havana. At that time he was the number-two man in Cuba – he was the minister for industry, and director of the Banco Nacional. His face was on the two peso note. I saw the blinds were drawn and, after we were introduced, I asked him in French: “Che, can I open the blinds? I need some light.” But he said no. I thought, well, it’s your face, not mine.

Immediately, Bergquist and Che started a furious ideological dogfight. She had to take back a story for the Americans, who were still angry about the revolution, and he was trying to convince her that what happened had to happen. For two and a half hours I could just dance around them with my camera. It was an incredible opportunity to shoot Che in all kinds of situations: smiling, furious, from the back, from the front. I used up eight rolls of film. He didn’t look at me once, he was so engaged with trying to convince her with maps and graphs. She was a chain-smoker, and he occasionally lit up one of his cigars.

We went back to New York, and Look ran a 16- or 20-page story. This picture was only an eighth of a page. It certainly wasn’t a photo essay, like the one Henri Cartier-Bresson did for Life magazine at the same time. He was in town with us, but only got to shoot Che at a press conference.

After Che died in 1967, this picture took on a great deal of iconic significance. Even before then, some kids from Zurich approached me wanting to make a poster from it. I never heard whether Che liked it or not; there was no response from Cuba at all. A photograph is a moment – when you press the button, it will never come back. This picture is famous thanks to the chap with the cigar, not to me.

I am told Mrs. Winogrand had very strong feelings that her husband’s camera should be continued to used after his death. She sold it to a family friend, who continues to shoot it to this day. Look at the front and back of the advance side top plate, where the chrome is worn away by the grip of Winogrand’s index and thumb. hmm. I get the impression he liked this camera, but he liked shooting pics even more.

Having always loved the circus, I saw the resemblance between movies and the circus. As a boy, my greatest dream would have been to be the director of a circus. I love the fantasy and the sense of improvisation in both.

-Federico Fellini

Claudia Cardinale and Federico Fellini during the production of FEDERICO FELLINI'S 8 1/2, 1963.

When I arrived for my first movie, I couldn’t speak a word [of Italian]. I thought I was on the moon. I couldn’t understand what they were talking about. And I was speaking in French; in fact I was dubbed. And Federico Fellini was the first one who used my voice. I think I had a very strange voice.